A Dessert Marriage Made in Heaven: Chocolate & Pecans

Chocolate and pecan pie. Imagine the flavor and aroma. In creating a new pecan pie, we decided on using chocolate because it's a dessert favorite. Our Priester's chocolate pecan pies were introduced a year after we'd perfected our pecan pie. This effort involved 510 pie baking tests during the late 1980s. Once we decided on trying a chocolate pecan pie, we needed to find quality chocolate. We located a supplier of high quality chocolate. Our supplier then helped us in turn, to locate a quality baking oven.

"We did a chocolate pecan pie because we thought it would be fun, and a nice variety. So you can order a regular pecan pie and a chocolate pecan pie for supper, and give your guests a choice between the two." said Thomas Ellis, Priester's co-owner.

Our kitchen family developed a unique and effective way to melt the chocolate in our pies. We didn't want the chocolate to leak out of your pie after you've sliced it in preparation for serving. We also wanted it to enhance the full flavor of the entire pie. That way you can taste the chocolate in every bite. It took quite a lot of practice.

"Here's a tip about chocolate. You place the pieces in the bottom of the crust or pie shell, unmelted. Then it will melt in the baking process." said Thomas.

We prefer not to roast our pecans before baking. If you roast them before baking, they end up over cooked, resulting in the pieces being chewy, rather than our preferred crunchy.

"Cooking time is over 1 hour, so they'll be roasted and toasted nicely when you cook the pie. Again the knack for putting together the right ingredients and then getting the cooking time and temperature is what it's all about," said Thomas. So, you could say our pecan pies have roasted and toasted the pecans to perfection right from the baking process! Our Chocolate pecan pie is a gourmet dessert that's popular with the local restaurants. The two ingredients make for truly a dessert marriage made in heaven! "As it turned out, we've had a lot of really fine restaurants buy our chocolate pecan pies for their dessert selection." said Ellen Ellis Burkett, Co-Owner.

If a fine restaurant chooses to offer a their clientele a Priester's Chocolate pecan pie, then perhaps it's time you tried one, too. It's the ultimate gourmet dessert.